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Strategic Stone Study (SSS) and English Building Stone Pits (EBSPits)
The Strategic Stone Study (SSS) was set up in response to the Symonds Report (Planning for the Supply of Natural Building and Roofing Stone in England and Wales) commissioned five years ago by the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (now Department of Communities and Local Government CLG) which examined the issues affecting the supply and demand of indigenous building stone in the UK. In particular, the report focussed on the problems of sourcing appropriate stone to repair historic buildings and recommended that Mineral Planning Authorities should identify and protect 'heritage quarries'.
It also recommended that a national database of the building and roofing stones be established to include:
- a description of the stones;
- an indication of their suitability for various end uses;
- details of existing sources;
- information on the extent of unworked resources, including disused/dormant quarries, outcrop limits and the likely extent of each rock unit.
Additional information for each stone would describe several key factors, including: notes on scarcity, importance for heritage and new build, the need for safeguarding potentially workable resources, and details of potential substitutes, perhaps from resources not currently worked.
There is at present, no single source of information which comprehensively lists the stones used for historic buildings; even the statutory listed buildings descriptions do not include such detail. In many parts of England, natural stone extraction has long ceased, and many distinctive local stones for building and conservation use are very difficult if not impossible to source. This means that the importance of many former and existing quarries is not widely appreciated.
The Symonds Report (2004) Planning for the Supply of Building and Roofing Stones in England and Wales ODPM publications.
Ladycross Quarry in Northumberland, for example, is one of the few remaining quarries where stone is essentially still won by hand using traditional methods. The site has been quarried for at least 300 years, supplying roofing slate to nearby villages and to the wider UK market in the last few decades.
In response to the recommendations of the Symonds Study, CLG produced guidance for Mineral Planning Authorities and others by publishing Minerals Policy Statement 1 (MPS1). Annex 3 Natural Building and Roofing Stone recommends that: English Heritage and the industry are encouraged to make Mineral Planning Authorities (MPAs) aware of important sources of building and roofing stone that they consider should be safeguarded from other forms of development....
The SSS aims to identify sustainable stone resources for building and conservation purposes, and to provide evidence of their importance. This will assist Regional Planning Bodies (RPBs) in developing policies in their Regional Spatial Strategies (RSSs) for safeguarding national, regional and locally significant building stone assets. Mineral Planning Authorities will then have information to help them identify quarries of importance to the built heritage, whether disused or active, which they consider should be safeguarded from needless sterilisation by non-mineral development. This should lead to clarity between the Mineral Safeguarding Areas (MSAs) in Local Development Documents (LDDs) and help to identify important characteristics in particular stones, e.g. density, porosity, grain size and geographical distribution. These are very important if historic buildings are to be successfully conserved.
Local authorities are therefore encouraged to recognise existing and potential quarry sites and include suitable policies within their development plans so that the needs of building conservation can be considered equally alongside other competing uses or designations.
EH, the British Geological Survey (BGS) and local geological teams across the country are working together to collate a catalogue of the rich variety of local building stones: their patterns of use, culturally significant buildings and villages in England, and their historic sources. EH has commissioned BGS to expand its database of quarries, mines and other mineral workings in the UK (BRITPITS) to accommodate the first national repository of data on building stone resources and the stone built heritage of England through a freely available unique database called English Building Stone Pits (EBSPits).
There are two principal aims to the collection and dissemination of data for this Study:
- The digital capture of:
- descriptions of the building stones used in the stone built structures of England, ranging from castles and cathedrals to vernacular houses, industrial and farm buildings, bridges, walling and even pavements and kerbs;
- representative buildings and villages, defined as ‘a built asset (in the form of a village, building, structure or other built feature) comprised in whole or in part of stone(s) which contributes to the vernacular character of its setting and is therefore representative of the village or locality, or is comprised of non-local stone(s) and has other local values or historical significance’; and
- building stone sources, identified by BGS. The location of each building stone quarry site is systematically captured on a county by county basis from a wide range of digital resources, primarily including Historic Ordnance Survey maps and BGS archival maps and others data which shows the location of known historic mine and quarry location(s) in England (EBSPits).
- Provide free access to this data
To make this information freely available on a dedicated Web Portal using a Geographical Information System (GIS).
Potential Outputs
The amalgamation of this data through the EBSPits Web Portal will provide:
- A strong, well informed evidence base to enable Mineral Planners’ to identify and investigate potential safeguarding areas.
- A clearer indication of the distribution and relationship between stone built structures and their former or currently worked building stone quarries.
- An opportunity to promote and encourage the use of indigenous stones for new-build and conservation projects by providing specific information identifying areas where local stones are no longer won and could be re-introduced.
- The facility to query and map data for individual quarry sites and determine patterns and extent of building stone usage from the specified site(s).
- Information on the past usage and suitability of individual stones for particular end uses: dressed ashlar, rubblestone, roofing, paving or decorative purposes for example.
- Valuable support for any case presented, for example, in the form of a planning application or appeal, by concerned parties such as English Heritage, National Trust, quarry companies, stone conservationists, to local and national planning authorities, to necessitate continuity of current and future stone production. Thus helping to safeguard not only England's building stone resources and stone built heritage but also the stone industry and stone craftsmanship on which it relies.
- An opportunity for local groups and individuals to add further data from their own research of (local) stone used within their county, or where a family may have existing historic involvement or connection with the stone trade through the quarrying, supply of and use of stone.
- English Heritage with assistance in complying with the requirements set out in MPS1, Annex 3 to identify and protect the sustainable, indigenous stone resources for building and conservation work in England.
The EBSPits national database will offer long-term assistance to Mineral Planning Authorities aiming to safeguard important sources, although the sheer scale of the task means it will take at least four years to complete. Despite its stated aim to amass a considerable amount of useful data on England's building stone resources and their principal characteristics, it is not the intention of this project to override or replace considered professional advice from experts in the stone conservation field, when undertaking specific stone conservation or new build projects. No building stone should be selected for use in a conservation or new building project based on data provided by EBSPits alone.
Tarnia McAlester (English Heritage) is gratefully acknowledged for her contribution to these web pages.
More information
- An article that first appeared in English Heritage's 'Conservation Bulletin', Spring 2007, is reproduced here by kind permission
- BGS has data on the regional distribution of major aggregate and other mineral resources, planning and environmental designations.
The new dataset showing English quarries and buildings is available for viewing and interrogation through a web GIS system, the trial, or beta, version is available here: http://maps.bgs.ac.uk/BuildingStone/default.aspx?resetsession=true
More data will be added when it becomes available.
